Trump press secretary attacks Maryland senator for traveling to El Salvador – as it happened

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US attorney general Pam Bondi on Wednesday unveiled legal action against Maine, in an escalation of Donald Trump's conflict with the state for refusing to ban transgender athletes from participating in women's and girls' sports.

Reuters reports that the lawsuit comes five days after the administration tried to cut off all of Maine's federal funding for public schools and its school lunch program over the issue, following a 21 February meeting of Trump and a group of US governors where he clashed with Maine's Democratic governor, Janet Mills.

Nothing in Title IX or its implementing regulations prohibits schools from allowing transgender girls and women to participate on girls' and women's sports teams. Your letters to date do not cite a single case that so holds.

It was a compelling meeting. And toward the end, we actually came up with - I'm going to say finally,' but I don't mean it in the way that we were waiting, I mean it in the way that it took a while for us to get to this place - what Putin's request is to get, to have a permanent peace here.